This week on Featured Album Fridays, the 2009 album from Michelle Featherstone – Blue Bike.

Here is the description of Michelle Featherstone from her Last.FM:

Born in Chester, raised in Cambridge, England, Michelle now resides in Hollywood, California. She began studying piano and composing original music at the age of nine, and hasn’t stopped since. She has received awards from the Royal Academy of Music for piano and violin and the Bishops Award for Voice.

After Graduation
Surprisingly, however, Michelle didn’t initially intend to pursue a career in music. As an art history major and anthropology minor at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania, she found herself managing the Walt Disney-Tishman Collection of African Art after graduation[1] in a somewhat frustrating role:

It was heartbreaking in some ways for me because…I had come from the Guggenheim where if somebody sneezed in the general vicinity of a painting…a conservator was there with a little Q-tip…and I was now working for a corporation…that because it wasn’t necessarily making them any money, they were a little bit more trepidations in spending money on the collection…it was frustrating mostly at times to work for them because of that reason.

Music As A Career
Fortunately for her fans, after about 18-months at Disney’s Imagineering arm, Michelle decided that “corporate America” wasn’t for her and made the decision to reconnect with her musical roots while working as a waitress in Southern California. Indeed, it was during one of her waitressing jobs that she just happened to play a few songs on the piano while the scheduled performers were on a break, that the audience’s reaction was so overwhelmingly positive that she realized that music was something that she needed to seriously pursue.

It’s a great album from a very talented artist, the stream is below, enjoy!